


we'll be a fine line

by evenwhenitsraining



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Canon Compliant, F/F, Season 3 Spoilers, this hurt a lot i'm not kidding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:47:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21829969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evenwhenitsraining/pseuds/evenwhenitsraining
Summary: Karolina tells herself it’s okay. She tells herself it’s alright to look for dark, raven hair in Julie’s own shades of color, to look for black lipstick in Julie’s side of the sink, to look for the small smile Nico gives her in Julie’s lips, to look for Nico’s scent when she hugs Julie and buries her head in her shoulders, to look for Nico’s soft voice and comforting words when Julie’s trying to ease her out of a nightmare. (title from "fine line" by harry styles)
Relationships: Karolina Dean/Nico Minoru, past Karolina Dean/Julie Power, past Karolina Dean/Nico Minoru
Comments: 1
Kudos: 92





	we'll be a fine line

**Author's Note:**

> ten months since my last deanoru fanfiction hehee. spoilers ahead for season three. not too much of a giveaway since it wasn't really that detailed but i would not advise reading it if you still haven't watched season three. as always, unbeta'd and unedited. 
> 
> (written and posted december 17, 2019)

It was a regular Thursday— an ordinary one, something so common that the pastel calendar plastered at the back of their bedroom door doesn’t even make so much of a space for it. The print of the numbers not in red, the ink of the pen not circled around it. Not anything special or something interesting was in store for that day.

But there was something different that Thursday. Karolina could feel it— God, she felt it in her bones, in her heart, pestering her like an itchy scratch threatening to bleed. She looks for it. Nothing on the table beside her side of the bed, no scrawled _good morning_ in Nico’s handwriting, no sugared coffee on that glittered rainbow cup Nico bought for her two weeks ago, no Nico— not a sign of Nico kissing her bare shoulders, not a second of Nico squeezing her cold hands, not a glimmer of Nico’s eyes waking her up from her slumber.

Instead, Karolina found her on the living room of the house they’ve been sharing for almost a year now, where their pictures (and a couple ones of their friends and families) are littered and nailed on the wall like paintings on a museum. Her eyes try to adjust to the lack of light because Nico has closed them all, curtains carefully drawn shut and window panes closed so tight. She finds Nico’s face and Nico’s hands and realization hits her like harsh waves hit steady rocks.

“You’re leaving?”

A second passes and Nico wipes a stray tear from her eyes. “It would be easier this way.”

“Easier how?”

But the girl doesn’t respond and moves to find the keys and the locks of the front door. Karolina moves faster— leaping and running to Nico’s arms. But they were like the windows of their home, closed and shut, not welcoming any light that tries to pass through. Nico’s crying now, because Karolina can feel the stream of tears that makes its way through the thin fabric of her shirt. She can feel Nico’s arms close around her, the way it had been before all of this and should always be.

But unlike before, her arms doesn’t stay there. She looks for it anyways, no matter how painful it is. Her arms do not stay locked around Karolina, caressing her back or soothing her shoulders or squeezing her hand. Nico’s hands move to the handle of her bags and carefully lifts them. Her hand twists around the door knob of their house, it closes the locks and leaves Karolina crying in the place where it once held her.

It was a Thursday. And from then on Karolina hated Thursdays more than how she hated how easily she can dislike the things she used to love. She hated Thursdays more than how she hated Nico’s shirts in the back of their beige dresser, more than how she hated the pillows on Nico’s side of the bed that still smelled like her shampoo, more than how she hated being left alone on a Thursday afternoon with nothing more than a quick hug and a sentence that will never stop haunting her.

Karolina hated Thursdays.

Sometimes, she couldn’t get up on a Thursday no matter how hard she tries. Occasionally, she would just try to forget the existence of that day, give it a new name or pretend that a _Wednesday part two_ exists. More than always, she just wishes Nico hadn’t left that one Thursday and just stayed with her just like she promised.

God, she hated Thursdays.

Until she didn’t anymore.

It was a Thursday when she met Julie Power on the campus coffee shop singing along to Karolina’s favorite song and wearing a t-shirt of the band Karolina just attended a concert of last week. 

It was a Thursday when she asked her on a date in a fancy restaurant downtown where a reservation for _Karolina Dean and Nico Minoru for one Friday night_ still lingers. A Thursday when she first held her trembling hand and thought of Nico’s small ones fitting perfectly with her own. A Thursday when she first kissed her lips and wished it was Nico’s dark lipstick smudging her cherry ones. A Thursday when she first said _I love you_ to Julie and imagined it was Nico’s quiet yet genuine _I love you too_ she received back.

Karolina tells herself it’s okay. She tells herself it’s alright to look for dark, raven hair in Julie’s own shades of color, to look for black lipstick in Julie’s side of the sink, to look for the small smile Nico gives her in Julie’s lips, to look for Nico’s scent when she hugs Julie and buries her head in her shoulders, to look for Nico’s soft voice and comforting words when Julie’s trying to ease her out of a nightmare.

Slowly, Karolina begins to move on. She and Julie bought a bigger house with all the walls painted with bright colors and not a shade of neutral colors just like how a girl from her past used to like it, with picture frames still scattered in the same pattern but with Julie’s faces instead of Nico’s. With Julie’s patient comfort that feels so great instead of Nico’s peaceful warmth that _feels like home._

Karolina threw Nico’s pictures, Nico’s clothes, Nico’s necklaces, Nico’s small sticky notes for her, Nico’s books, Nico’s mugs, Nico’s _everything_ in boxes and taped them so tight she feels herself unable to breathe. Karolina tries to mail them back to Tina, but since the woman has yet to reply (it’s been months), she keeps them neatly stacked in the spare room and keeps them there with no labels or a cloth draped over them.

Karolina tells Julie about Nico, and Julie tells her that she deserved better. Deserved better than all the heartbreaking moments her love put her through. Deserved better than being left without so much as a goodbye on a Thursday.

Karolina started to believe her and started to stop looking for black hair, small smiles, the space between their heights, _good morning_ sticky notes, inside jokes, warm hands, black lipstick, and Nico. She stopped looking for Nico chasing her through the living room, Nico smudging her with icing in the kitchen, Nico kissing her cheek, her lips, her everything in the bed they used to share. She stopped looking.

Until she doesn’t need to look anymore.

It was a Thursday when Karolina saw Nico again. Barefaced, rid of the dark eyeshadows and lipsticks she used to wear when they were younger. Clothes whose colors remind her of the autumn breeze, hair that reminds her of the summer waves. And God, Nico looks _so beautiful_. So, so beautiful.

Karolina wanted to forgive her (joke’s on her because she’s already forgiven her long before she asked) but not when she’s just started to move on. To have a life of her own, to have a world that doesn’t revolve around Nico.

So she decides to act like it doesn’t sting like a stitched wound being opened again. Karolina reassures Julie but she reassures herself more, a desperate grasp at a sharp, rusted anchor that’s already breaking in fragments. Karolina refuses hugs and even looks of acknowledgment from Nico, avoids being in the same close space between them. She convinces herself she’s already stopped looking.

Until she’s tired of running away anymore.

She’s tired of looking for Nico. But not of loving Nico in the way she’s known and will continue holding on to— against anything, more than anything. With the future being rewritten and the uncertainty of what it might bring terrifying her, she stops. She breathes. Karolina knows she’ll— _they’ll be fine._

“Promise me you’ll find me. Wherever we are.”

_They'll be fine._

"I will." 


End file.
